STATE HOUSE AREAS

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28679, 1 September 1958, Page 13

STATE HOUSE AREAS

“Urban Sprawl Promoted”

*TM Presr Special Service ~ AUCKLAND, August 31. Members of the Auckland Regional Planning Authority feel the Government is creating an urgent problem by promoting urban sprawl. They criticised Government departments yesterday for buying land for housing outside areas zoned for residential purposes. The authority will draw the at- > tention of the Ministers concerned to the matter. Mr H. D. Lambie, chairman of the authority, said he was disturbed by the big buying of areas for State housing by the Government. He thought it was far in excess of Auckland’s requirements and was contributing to uneconomic urban development. Mr Lambie quoted as an example the 2000-acre Otara scheme. He said he understood that another area at least as big had been bought nearby for future similar development. And, as yet, the Otara scheme had not fully got under way. The chairman of the Waitemata County Council, Mr A. J. G. Stevens, said local bodies were running into difficulties with town planning because of the Government’s “high-handed” actions in buying land without consulting them. “State departments themselves are acting contrary to the town planning provisions we are supposed to enforce,” said Mr Stevens. "We often have to replan around land bought by the Government.” Underwater Missile. The United States Navy has announced the development of an ‘‘underwater guided missile” to be fired from submarines and steered by an attached wire.—Washington, August 30. i